In the third episode of her six-part Tending series, host Shirlette Ammons visits Nicodemus, Kansas, a historic Black settlement, to learn how one family’s decades-long battle against the USDA’s discrimination began and how their case became a foundation for the Pigford v. Glickman lawsuit.

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In this second episode of Tending, Shirlette Ammons travels to Georgia, where she meets two Black farmers whose stories illustrate the emotional and physical toll of fighting the USDA's discrimination.

About Tending

Hosted by award-winning musician and documentary producer Shirlette Ammons, Tending is a six-part narrative series that explores the ongoing struggles of Black farmers through the lens of Pigford v. Glickman—once the largest civil rights class-action lawsuit in U.S. history. Ammons—an eastern North Carolina native with deep farming roots—travels across seven Southern states to meet Pigford claimants and their descendants. Their stories paint a vivid picture of injustice and an ongoing fight for restitution. 

Visit the “Tending” website here to learn more.

The first episode in this series profiles North Carolina.

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In the first episode of “Tending,” host Shirlette Ammons begins a journey to reclaim her family's legacy by exploring the largest civil rights lawsuit in U.S. history, Pigford v. Glickman, in which Black farmers fought against discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to save their family land.

About “Tending”

Hosted by award-winning musician and documentary producer Shirlette Ammons, “Tending” is a six-part narrative series that explores the ongoing struggles of Black farmers through the lens of Pigford v. Glickman—once the largest civil rights class-action lawsuit in U.S. history. Ammons—an eastern North Carolina native with deep farming roots—travels across seven Southern states to meet Pigford claimants and their descendants. Their stories paint a vivid picture of injustice and an ongoing fight for restitution. 

Visit the “Tending” website here to learn more.

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Listen to Gravy's preview of “Tending,” a 6-part weekly narrative series debuting October 15, 2025. Hosted by award-winning musician and documentary producer Shirlette Ammons, “Tending” explores the ongoing struggles of Black farmers through the lens of Pigford v. Glickman—the largest civil rights class-action lawsuit in U.S. history.  

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In “The Long Recovery: Farmers and Hurricane Helene,” Gravy

The storm hit in late September, 2024. It killed at least 250 people and left nearly $80 billion worth of damage, the majority of that in mountainous western North Carolina. Farmers, who work flood-prone bottomlands and steep slopes in the high country, suffered catastrophic losses.

There are thousands of farms in the region, which prides itself on its local foodways and strong network of producers. On many of these

Still, it's not all bad. The storm did such dramatic damage that some farmers are starting almost from scratch and using that as an opportunity to build back better. Maybe that means putting in modern apple varieties, updating trellis systems, or changing the crops they grow. One farmer we spoke to is refocusing her farm on agribusiness and increasing her flower plantings. Another farmer is working to develop a method of growing raspberries that would use an annual rotation, like with tomatoes, rather than maintaining shrubs for a decade, which requires labor-intensive pruning and would leave

This year, farmers have largely been cleaning up, evaluating, and figuring out how to proceed. The longer work of rebuilding could stretch for years to come.

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In “An Orthodox Jewish Congregation Keeps on (Food) Truckin' in Birmingham,” Gravy producer Margaret Weinberg Norman documents the story of JJ’s Sandwich Shop, a glatt kosher deli on wheels operated by the oldest Orthodox Jewish congregation in Birmingham, Alabama.

In the Magic City, food trucks are familiar, but both kosher restaurants and authentic delis are rare. Knesseth Israel, founded in 1889, is filling both gaps while exploring a surprising new way to sustain its historic congregation. Like many small Southern synagogues, Knesseth Israel faced dwindling membership, financial pressures, and questions about its future. After selling their synagogue building and parting ways with their Rabbi, the congregation chose a bold new path: to open a business. Knesseth Israel’s restaurant venture began with a vegetarian crepe enterprise called Holy Crepe, and through experimentation evolved into JJ’s, which specializes today in homemade corned beef and pastrami.

On our listening journey we meet Beth Scherer Smokey, a longtime member and volunteer who led the congregation through this transformation. We also meet chef Nathan Lichenstein. Raised in an Orthodox Hasidic family in New York, Nathan once ran a glatt kosher food truck in the city and cooked for thousands of pilgrims annually in Ukraine. His move to Birmingham brought not only culinary expertise but also new energy to Knesseth Israel. His passion for good, kosher food has made JJ’s both a crowd-pleaser and a point of pride.

This episode places JJ’s within the wider history of Birmingham’s Jewish foodscape, once clustered along Fourth Avenue, overlapping with the heart of the historic Black commercial district and the old Jewish neighborhood. Community historian Barbara Bonfield recalls memories of borscht, kosher butchers, and the neighborhood life that sustained Jewish Birmingham in the early to mid-20th century.

This story also speaks to larger trends. In 2022, a Pew Study projected that by 2070, “nones” (those unaffiliated with organized religion) would outnumber Christians, who made up 64% of the national population at the time. Against this backdrop, Knesseth Israel’s story offers lessons for other small faith communities seeking to adapt their models to demographic realities. JJ’s isn’t just a source of revenue; it’s also a form of outreach, connecting across Birmingham’s Jewish and broader communities alike. Though they’ve reduced their footprint, JJ’s has helped Knesseth Israel gain visibility both within and beyond the Birmingham Jewish community.

This is a story at the intersection of tradition and innovation, faith and food—one that shows how a small but mighty congregation found its future not by clinging to the past, but by rolling it out on a food truck.

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In “Southern Cooking Comes to Portugal,” Gravy producer Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong takes listeners to Porto, the second largest city in Portugal, which anchors the northern region. Porto is famous for its wine and its hearty francesinha sandwiches. But this city of a quarter million people has a food scene whose depth might surprise you. Porto runs the gamut from picturesque century-old markets to hipster bakeries whose joelho pastries and glazed cornflake croissants frequently spawn lines out the door. And it’s also home to not one, but two Black Alabamian women reinventing what it means to be a Southern chef. While Gravy is a show about the changing American South, this is a story about the malleability of Southern identity—and changing American Southerners.

Angela Sellers is the owner of Piccolo Cameo, a Mediterranean fusion restaurant focusing on bright, seasonal pastas. The restaurant happened almost by accident, but it has grown to be one of the

Bridget and Angela are among the thousands of Americans currently living in Portugal, as is Adwoa, this episode’s producer. Not long after Adwoa moved to Porto, a friend told her that the city felt like the opening scene of Beauty and the Beast: everybody waking up to say "bonjour" (or "bom dia," as the case may be). People's manners feel familiar to her in a way that puts her at ease.  

For Bridget, that southern adjacency is also reflected in the food: Portuenses eat similarly to American Southerners, fatback and ham hock included. But Angela has found freedom in redefining what

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In “We Sure Eat Good When Someone Dies,” Gravy producer Caleb Johnson takes listeners back to August 2024, when his extended family gathered inside a Baptist church in Arley, Alabama, to mourn the loss of their matriarch—his grandmother, Celia Sampley. Before the funeral service, the church served lunch for the family, including chicken and dumplings, green-bean casserole, and plenty of desserts. A particular cake caught Caleb’s eye that day, called a pea picking cake. In this episode, Caleb steps into the kitchen of the woman who baked that memorable cake and explores how eating something sweet helps us process grief.

The cook’s name is Sandra Stewart, and she was a good friend of Caleb’s grandmother. They attended Bethel Baptist Church together for many years. When it came time to bake something for the funeral wake, Sandra looked through her large recipe book. She chose a pea picking cake because all the ingredients she needed were already in her pantry. Her choice was mainly for convenience.

Traditionally, recipes for pea picking cake call for using a box cake mix. The first box cake mix was created in the 1930s, but it didn’t become popular until after World War II. Caleb talks with food historian KC Hysmith about the mysterious origins of the pea picking cake and how it fits into a tradition of fancy box cakes that grew popular in the second half of the twentieth century, a time when home cooks started using more store-bought, convenience ingredients.

Caleb also speaks with Dr. Candi K. Cann, a professor of religion at Baylor University and a self-described death scholar, about funeral traditions involving food around the world. She explains that these traditions help mourners revisit meaningful relationships. However, despite the close link between funerals and foodways, Dr. Cann says Americans aren’t taught how to navigate grief, partly because individualism is a key part of the Protestant faith. She believes this has led to less emphasis on communal meals like the one served at Caleb’s grandmother’s wake.

***

This episode was reported by Caleb Johnson. Johnson is the author of the novel Treeborne, and a frequent contributor to the Gravy podcast and magazine. He teaches creative writing at Appalachian State University. 

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In “Virginia Public Schools Serve Indigenous Cuisine,” Gravy producer Anya Groner takes listeners to the second annual Indigenous Peoples Feast at the College of William & Mary. The evening’s menu showcases indigenous food–foraged wild rice, duck confit, acorn grits, and a four-corn stew. But these dishes aren’t just for enjoying tonight. With the help of a USDA grant, they’ll eventually be served at public school cafeterias in

Coming up with the menu wasn’t easy. Centuries of forced assimilation, land grabs, and genocide prevented cultural knowledge from being passed down through generations. Designed by Chef Diosa Hall from the Mohawk Nation and Chef Joe Rocchi from the Pamunkey Tribe, the meal combined native plants and fowl from the Eastern Seaboard with contemporary culinary trends, emphasizing the entire production process, from tiny seed to plated meal. Volunteers foraged herbs like plantain and bergamot. Hunters donated ducks. Growers harvested sustainably farmed vegetables.

Scaling up the supply chain to make these ingredients available to hundreds of schools could take two or three decades. Dr. Troy Wiipongwii is the Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Conservation at the College of William and Mary and a founding member of the Traditional Eastern Woodlands Foodways Alliance, the intertribal group leading this program. He says sustainable foods cost almost double to produce, but they’re worth it. Agricultural systems like food forests not only rebuild ecosystems, but they also produce nutrient-dense food that’s healthier to eat. Wiipongwii put together a K-12 curriculum integrating indigenous foodways into science, math, health, and humanities to change attitudes around food production.

Chef Hall believes making native foods available in public schools will give indigenous students a sense of belonging. That’s especially important because schools haven’t always been welcoming places for Native children. For centuries, residential schools took children from Native families

Listen to find out what it will take to keep indigenous food traditions visible in the nation’s cultural landscape—and how kids rate acorn grits and butternut squash against the typical school lunch.

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This week, Gravy is excited to share a special episode from a show we think you’ll love: Culinary Characters Unlocked. Hosted by David Page, the creator of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, the show highlights bold food makers whose stories might surprise you. 

In this episode, we meet chef Marisa Baggett, a Black, Jewish, female sushi chef whose journey began in a Mississippi café where she’d never even seen sushi before. One question from a customer launched her into a new world, eventually leading her to train at the California Sushi Academy and write two cookbooks that make sushi more accessible to home cooks everywhere. Marisa’s story is one of passion, persistence, and breaking expectations—both cultural and culinary. We think you’ll be as fascinated by Marisa's story as we are. 

If you like what you hear, tune in every Tuesday for new episodes of Culinary Characters Unlocked.

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